Victorian holiday recipes

Try to make these favourite Victorian dishes at home.

Spotted Dick - British steamed pudding

Ingredients

3/4 pound of flour (about 3.5 cups unsifted all purpose)
1/2 pound beef suet
1/2 pound of currants
2 oz. white sugar
Cinnamon
2 eggs
10 fluid oz. of milk (1.25 cups)
Boiling cloth

Directions

Mix flour, beef suet (or butter/shortening), currents, sugar and cinnamon.

Add two eggs and milk.

Boil in either a mould or cloth for one hour and a half.

Alternatively, place dough in parchment paper loosely wrapped with ends tied to allow pudding to rise and use a steamer.

Serve with melted butter and a little sugar.

French Beef Soup (Pot-Au-Feu)

This recipe was originally created for the Soyer Stoves. First used during the Crimean war, the stoves could cook for up to 50 men and remained in use by European and Canadian forces well into the 20th century.

Ingredients

6 pounds of beef
3/4 lb plain vegetables
Onions or leeks
Celery
Turnip
Carrots
3 tsp of salt
1 tsp pepper
1 tsp sugar
8 pints of water
1 lb white bread (hard) or biscuit

Directions

Put in the canteen saucepan 6 lbs. of beef, cut in two or three pieces, bones included;

Add 3/4 lb. of plain mixed vegetables, as onions, carrots, turnips, celery, leeks, or such of these as can be obtained, or 3 oz. of preserved in cakes, as now given to the troops;

3 teaspoonfuls of salt,1 teaspoonful of pepper, 1 teaspoonful of sugar, if handy;

8 pints of water, let it boil gently three hours, remove some of the fat, and serve.

The addition of 1 1/2 lb. of bread cut into slices, or 1 lb. of broken biscuit, well soaked in the broth, will make a very nutritious soup; skimming is not required.